AP Psych unit 1

• Psychology


  Mixes physiology (physical studies) and philosophy
• Early philosophers


  • Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato
  • Debated upon nature vs. nurture and where the actual "mind" was
• Tabula Rosa


  The mind is like a blank slate at birth, and any healthy baby can become anything
• William James


  • Wrote the first textbook about psychology in 1890
  • Began functionalism (analyzing the purpose of behavior)
• William Wundt


  • Set up the first lab to study psychology in Germany
  • Began structuralism (used introspection, looking inside oneself to examine mental experience, and certain structures made the mind)
• Gestalt


  • Criticized James and Wundt for not considering the "whole self"
• Freud


  • Psychoanalysis (conscious and unconscious processes)
• Skinner


  • Behaviorism (changing behaviors can be treatment, conditioning can be used)
• Eclectic approach


  There are multiple perspectives
• Theory


  Based on facts/evidence
• Hypothesis


  Testable prediction to a theory
• Hypothesis example


  • If kids eat more sugar, they will be more distracted, impulsive, etc.
• Null Hypothesis


  Try disproving our own ideas; is there a statistically significant difference (5% difference or more between having the treatment or not)
• Null Hypothesis example


  • Plant growth is not affected by light color.
• Hindsight bias


  Upon hearing research findings (or other results), people have the tendency to believe that they could have figured it out
• Hindsight bias example


  • Saying "I knew it all along" at the end of a sports game
• Operational definition


  Explaining how you will measure a variable so that replication of an experiment is made easier
• Operational definition example


  • If a psychologist is doing an experiment where they are seeing how anxiety varies between age groups, they can operationally define anxiety as the rating participants choose on a survey
• Coincidence Error


  Humans have tendency to look for patterns so we might see patterns in random things
• Overconfidence Error


  Sometimes, we are sure we are right, and that causes error
• Sampling


  Process by which participants/subjects are chosen for participating in a study
• Representative Sample


  The sample is able to represent a larger population effectively
• Representative Sample example


  • Choosing people of various groups is more representative of a city than, for example, a sample of only old men in the city
• Random Selection


  Increases the likelihood of a sample being representative
• Random Selection example


  • When trying to get a sample of 100 out of 900 high schoolers in a certain school, you can choose the students based on their ID numbers. This allows you to get people of random grade, age, and gender
• Stratified Sample


  Allows researchers to ensure that a sample is directly representative through a certain criteria
• Stratified Sample example


  • If the population of 1000 has 500 white, 300 black, and 200 Latino people, then for a sample of 100, there would be 50 white, 30 black, and 20 Latino people
• Experimental Method


  Preferred for an experiment since it is able to show a cause and effect result through manipulating a variable
• Confounding variable


  Any difference between the experimental and control conditions that might affect the dependent variable of an experiment
• Confounding variable example


  • If you are testing to see how the amount of sleep affects performance, the results may be influenced by foods that each person eats
• Random assignment


  Gets rid of bias, which is a major issue in experiments
• Independent variable


  Whatever the experimenter is manipulating
• Independent variable example


  • If you are testing to see how amount of sleep affects performance, the hours of sleep is the independent variable because that is affecting performance and you are changing that
• Dependent variable


  The variable which is measured
• Dependent variable example


  • If you are testing to see how amount of sleep affects performance, the performance level is the dependent variable since that is what the experimenter is figuring out
• Experimental bias


  The unconscious tendency for researchers to treat members of the experimental or control group differently because he/she knows what the experiment is about
• Experimental bias example


  • A researcher who hates people who use drugs might treat the group who uses drugs differently than the group which doesn't use drugs (unconsciously)
• Subject bias


  The subjects of the experiment act differently because they know what experimenters want
• Subject bias example


  • The Hawthorne Effect was discovered through a study in which workers were monitored to see if the amount of light in the room affected productivity. This effect was shown when all the workers just worked harder because they were being watched
• Double-blind procedure


  Both the subjects and researchers are unaware of the control vs. experimental group